The prevailing view among modern scientists is that a human being is in essence a complex machine. According to this view, our life and consciousness have their source in the interactions of our bodily parts—neurons in the brain, organelles in the cells, and so on.
Modern mechanistic science rests on the premise that reality is ultimately reducible to a simple set of mathematical equations. Such a view fails to account for two important aspects of reality: consciousness, and complex biological form.
Science conceives the brain to be the seat of all mental functions. According to Bhagavad-gita, however, the mind has an additional component (known in Sanskrit as manah, or “material mind”) that is distinct from both the brain and the conscious self.
Philosophies based on mundane sense perceptions lead us to believe that God must be remote and inaccessible – if He exists at all.
“Probability is the most important concept in modern science, especially as nobody has the slightest idea what it means.”—Bertrand Russell
“All reputable evolutionary biologists now agree that the evolution of life is directed by the process of natural selection, and by nothing else.” With these words Sir Julian Huxley summed up the consensus of learned opinion at the Darwin Centennial Celebration in 1959.
Science fiction writers often try to solve the problems of old age and death by taking advantage of the idea that a human being is essentially a complex machine.
The process of perception begins when light from an object enters the eye and is focused on the retina. This light stimulates a series of neurochemical reactions that ultimately reach the brain as a systematic pattern of pulses.
Modern scientists acquire knowledge, at least in principle, by what is called the hypothetico-deductive method. Using this method, they formulate hypotheses and then test them by experimental observation.
The idea that life can be reduced to chemistry and physics has become very prominent in the life sciences. According to this idea, all living organisms, including human beings, are simply aggregates of molecules interacting in accordance with chemical and physical laws.
Life sciences are dominated by the idea that life can be understood within the framework of chemistry and physics. By this point of view, all features of life, from the metabolic functioning of cells to the mental phenomena of thinking, feeling, and willing, are to be explained as the consequences of underlying chemical processes.
Physics and chemistry describe the world in terms of electrons, protons, electrical fields, and various other such phenomena. If you think this system of ideas is universal, you’ll conclude that nothing but electrons, protons, electrical fields, and so on exist.